


Hades

by Hyacinthium



Series: Rotary [4]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Tokyo Ghoul, Angst and Tragedy, Blood and Gore, Cannibalism, Canon Typical Content, M/M, Mentions of Sex, Optional Scene, Read the note, Time Loop, Vent Writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 19:48:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14921741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyacinthium/pseuds/Hyacinthium
Summary: It's hard to give in. It's easy to give up. These two very different things are often side by side or conflated. Shuichi stopped caring a long time ago, maybe. Not about the important things, though. Never about Kokichi.





	Hades

**Author's Note:**

> Multi-party loops  
> Although infinite loops in a single program are usually easy to predict, a loop caused by several entities interacting is much harder to foresee.

Eat. You're hungry. So eat. 

But I'm not, Shuichi tells himself. Looks down at the lump on the bed, the bed where he and Kokichi had made love. This Kokichi. Kokichi? It had to have been. There was no way or reason for Shuichi to deny that Kokichi… 

Why had Kokichi woken up to the anguish of this? When had the memories show up and implanted themselves like perfect mental files? Or was it different in Kokichi's case? Maybe this was the first time. No. 

No, Kokichi must have been looping for so long, the way he'd spoken. 

Kokichi is laying at rest on their bed. 

He's even smaller, even paler, limp and eventually to undergo the stages of decomposition. 

Unless someone gets sent to retrieve the remains. Shuichi isn't sure if he wants to see people in special uniforms take it away. He's barely even consistent on whether the body before him still counts as Kokichi. No one in in there anymore. It's grown cold despite how hard Shuichi tried to bundle him up and keep Kokichi warm. 

He should leave and go eat from the fridge. There's enough human flesh and organs to last him a month, even if Shuichi binges like his body wants to. Using his kagune in that fight drained him. Healing himself had made it worse-

Seeing Kokichi dead because of Shuichi's own actions is killing him. 

That's fine. This timeline and world is lost now. 

Shuichi’s eyes run over the dry and motionless lips that can never smile at him again. 

Usually, Shuichi tries. Makes it to the conclusion even if Kokichi dies, because Kokichi often dies before Shuichi. 

Kokichi. Kokichi is dead. Kokichi is gone and Kokichi is resting before him with no blood pumping and no nothing or anything. The bleeding was desperately slowed and then stopped itself. 

He smells like blueberry and teas. Like human salt, shampoo, blood, fresh rot, sweat. Sugary and savory. 

Hints of their dinner. 

Kokichi smells like Shuichi's scent all over-

Shuichi’s body lifts off of Kokichi's strange chair and manages to make it over to over. Over Kokichi. 

Like sleeping beauty, Kokichi almost looks like he could awaken at any moment. Eyes fluttering the way they did after his second orgasm, a small death, or when he finally gave Shuichi's neck a ring of hickies. Remembering it makes Shuichi's head ring. 

He's realizing that to be interference. In hindsight, Kokichi might have said something that was suspicious. Shuichi as well. 

The will to care leaves when Shuichi's fingers finally go down to caress Kokichi's face. 

Soft. Cold. 

This Kokichi who could have-

Shuichi isn't sure. What could they have done? They could have talked for the first time in years. Just them. Kokichi could have held him and Shuichi could have finally apologized for everything. Kokichi might have done the same, but it's always been Shuichi's fault. 

There will never be a way for him know how to apologize, so he gently undoes Kokichi's scarf instead. 

His eyes burn at the sight of Kokichi's heavily discolored neck. 

Kokichi had trusted him so much here.

It's not fair. 

Trembling finger tips hover and scatter white fabric. It's not fair that Kokichi has to suffer over and over, that Shuichi keeps falling into loving him or even hating him, but Shuichi can't help it. And the times of hate always break by the end anyway. He doesn't get any of the emotions and the memories are impersonal in the way that movies are-

But it's so easy to latch onto Kokichi. There's unending options for what flavor of regret or yearning that Shuichi wants to see. Just blink and watch the film reel swim by. 

Shuichi closes his eyes and feels the would be sore bumps and scabs that Kokichi had delighted in. Goes further down than his neck line, and sobs when his hands send further sensory information to his brain. 

He wants Kokichi back. He wants Kokichi to stay with him. 

All him, of him, them. 

When Shuichi was young and his parents were still there. Back then. Before he grew up without them and slowly realized that they might actually be dead. As a child full of excitement even when his parents traveled constantly, because his parents made little worlds come to life, worlds dedicated to him. 

In this world, Shuichi who was called their miracle, heard things that now put a desperate thought into his head; “I know. I know, but if it comes to that then I want to be with you. In any way that I can. You'll need to be strong if they find us. To come back home.”

And then his mother had said further, “So if the Counter Commission for Ghouls finds us… you have to make it back to Shuichi. Even if it means eating me.”

They never came back. 

It's not even his real background or childhood. 

But it's all that this reflection of Shuichi has, and he is so very empty. He wants to go home. Then Shuichi remember the sight of that one quinque that Maki had wielded and another wave of grief washes over him. Home is dead and turned into psychological warfare against the living, weapons used to kill you and turn you against your family as well. But Shuichi has always, privately, thought that it was often fair. 

Another him probably still will. Emotions just don't make the cut. 

Or maybe the next him will see the look on Kokichi's face at the sight of Maki's shield. And. 

Shuichi wants Kokichi back. 

Kokichi lets Shuichi give him a hesitant kiss, and it's alright for Shuichi to lie in Kokichi's place, because soon they'll both be dead. One to two. 

Shuichi’s throat won't let him breathe. 

His jaw opens. 

Ripe sweetness blooms from the corpse neck and into Shuichi's mouth. 

The mastermind isn't Tsumugi right now. Shuichi knows what that Tsumugi is like, and that Tsumugi wouldn't have crawled her frantic way over to a dying Kokichi. Wouldn't have made such a desperate move or confessed to Shuichi just how disturbed she made herself. At how concerned she is about her lack of concrete emotions. By her lack of concern. 

The thought that her inability to feel safe enough to feel made her a monster. How happy each friendship fragment made her. 

That she was scared for Kokichi. 

Shuichi’s mouth and eyes drip into Kokichi's ruined collarbones. 

This Tsumugi and her inflicted instability are a diversion. This Tsumugi with her hesitantly treasured friendship, ‘highest with you, Kaede, and Kokichi!’, is a red herring. Shuichi and his determination to find the truth won't let him ignore that. 

He's known who it is for a while though. She always acts too different when it's her. Shuichi noticed it right away the first time, but didn't know what it meant until the end. 

Seeing her talk about Hope and Despair, even in a posthumous video situation, had ruined part of him. But Shuichi already knew just how wrong they could all be. It all had root in the reality that Shuichi had been unable to accept returning to. Dangan Ronpa was supposed to help people,he'd thought. 

They all have their well crafted and supplied reasons, for when it's their turn to be the sick freak getting off on suffering. 

Shuichi had murmured praises into Kokichi's firm-soft abdomen just hours ago. Perhaps less than five. 

Now, he's silent in favor of trying to find that body heat again. 

Each rejection of Dangan Ronpa just makes Shuichi hate his old self more. How was it ever helping anyone? What justification had Shuichi used before all this began?

He's so tired of hope and despair in any shape or form. They're pitiful words used to simplify the human condition, melt down complex emotions, label and control individual thought processes. 

Shuichi’s jaws stop moving. 

A Kokichi had told him once, “If you really need to justify it to anyone in order to let yourself do it, then it's wrong.”

Shuichi’s eyes open and glaze right over. It's still sweet. It's disgusting and frigid compared to how Kokichi should be. Shuichi won't bother justifying it because he knows that it cannot ever be right. 

But isn't that just Shuichi trying to cling to morality in some way? 

He swallows again. 

Kokichi must have thought about it. Shuichi had seen it in the settling of the knife while Kokichi cooked dinner. Shuichi heard it in the sound of Kokichi's moans, under the pressing spikes of unyielding static, felt it when the memories of watching Kokichi kill himself and then jolt back to life finished playing. Now, Shuichi wonders how hard it must have been for Kokichi to not joke about feeding bits of himself to Shuichi. 

Shuichi’s heart hadn't been able to handle seeing that world. He'd skimmed the less recently made worlds and prayed to not dream of it all. 

He's not sure how they line up, actually. 

Parallel, asymmetrical, circling around. In what direction are they moving? 

But his red fingers are spreading perpetually wet and forever drying blood onto Kokichi's untouched face- corruption in scarlet. It's a familiar sight. 

There can't possibly be something like humanity left in Shuichi now. Except that Kokichi would probably disagree, and Kokichi matters, Kokichi's words matter. 

More. 

And more. 

Shuichi consumes more limp flesh until he's full. Then, he continues. It's far too easy for his hands and teeth to glide through- even though Shuichi has never done anything like this before in his current life. He hadn't lied to Kokichi at all on that night. The few times that he'd seen useable bodies weren't ones that Shuichi had done anything to. Absolutely never with his bare hands, and yet, Shuichi keeps going.

Cracking open bone is simple for a ghoul. 

Stop and stop again, but it always moves on to a new set of variables. It's important to do everything you can in order to find the most efficient course of action. That's the logic behind the existence of Saihara Shuichi. 

Chewing vascular tissue is easy for a monster. 

His stomach hurts and it's the best feeling that he can imagine dying with. 

I hate you. 

[I do too.] 

But neither of Shuichi can imagine stopping, even as one Shuichi looks away from the world He made, even as the other devours everything of who made him feel like a person the first time in so long. 

Shuichi gets dressed in the spare clothing that he had the foresight to bring, washing himself in their bathroom. It's easy to leave the bedside now. There's nothing tying him down to the room either, no physical chain waiting for a glass coffin, no dead body with Kokichi's heart making Shuichi unable to move. 

Leaving Kokichi alone is unfathomable.

He goes off and out of the room to find the mastermind- the ringleader playing them like strings. 

Shuichi doesn't feel a speck of guilt. 

Kokichi goes with him.

**Author's Note:**

> If you are unsure about reading this or what the tags mean: It's Shuichi eating Kokichi's remains. As always, the warnings from Glycon apply more than ever. Hades contains spoilers on how the loops work. As this fic is optional, you don't have to read it. All of this will be explained in Arachne. The only unique to this fic is perhaps ghoul Shuichi's backstory and further clarification. 
> 
> This is exactly the scene that was implied in the last chapter of Medusa. It was written to vent and was done so in one session lasting about an hour, not exactly beta read, and a bit polished. Forgive me, but I don't think I'll be doing any more for it.
> 
> I'm half posting it outside of the Saiou pit because I want you all to know that I'm not dropping anything. Arachne is almost ready to be posted.


End file.
